Dude - there isn’t any such thing as a ‘far left’ billionaire. It’s totally oxymoronic. The minute you try and levy a 90% tax on those a-holes, or make their kids go to public schools, or force them to use a public health care system - they’ll show you exactly how ‘far’ left they are. You are talking about liberals - the kind who are wildly radical until it affects them personally.
“In every American community, you have varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects. Ten degrees to the left of center in good times, ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally. “
I guess that depends on how you like to divide up the spectrum.
Most people seem to choose which side they are on and then call everyone they don't like a member of the opposite end of the spectrum.
There are a couple I find useful:
1) the classic "who controls the means of production", with the further left you move, the more democratized the ownership of the means of production are. This is what I was taught in school back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth (the 80s).
2) closely related would be a centralization of authority or totalitarianism on the Right, and democracy on the left. I guess some would put total anarchy on the left, but that doesn't seem to be particularly useful.
I agree with the previous commenter that a billionaire can't be left wing - the fact they control so much undemocratically would make them, by the definitions I was taught, on the right, and favoring a centralization of power.
Machiavelli would probably have a good word for them. Wolves in sheep’s clothing. It hurts, as a San Franciscan, realizing the duplicity in action by a group of faux liberals attempting to destroy a community so they can enjoy the benefits of a fire sale.
Written 100 years ago, GK Chesterton he had this to say about the rich and government:
“You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare
Since the consequences of defunding the police, turning millions of people loose at the (nonexistent) border, and enlisting ineffective, incompetent minions to run "charity" or "nonprofit" organizations to make themselves look enlightened and keep the whole racket going, they have no incentive to stop and no intention of correcting any problem at all.
Thanks for the excellent reporting. You have certainly identified the enemy. Defund the police, eliminate meat/fossil fuels (except private jets for elite and yachts), eat bugs (only for non-elite), forced vaccination/masking, lock down the world (except elite people), let criminals out of jail, demonize white people (only non-elite non-left whites), and disarm the population (non-elite of course w/o hired armed security) are all movements bank rolled by largely the same mostly white billionaires. These are the Lex Luthor class terrorizing the world. A much bigger threat to national security than China, Iran, or Russia.
Thanks Lee. Another excellent example of how the average American has been left to fend for themselves. People scratch their heads in puzzlement over Trump’s popularity with the common folk, but until these people are directly impacted with the consequences of their own policy endorsements, nothing will ever change. It baffles the mind how they can be so obtuse.
Theresa, I keep asking the same question: What is the benefit to these elites that contribute to causes that only destroy the fabric of their city? And am perplexed. Lee can you answer that question? It is obvious to any rational person SF is not succeeding.
I’ve met many of these donors. They don’t bother walking the streets and never talk to victims of crime or working class people. They read radical left literature and surround themselves in an echo chamber of weirdo extremist elite activists. Some like TODCO have financial incentives. Most are just blinded by ideology and are so fabulously wealthy that they are in denial about how much harm they are causing.
Great article! TODCO is profiting off its virtue-signaling - less housing then higher market rents paid to TODCO. Like the NGOs, the groups funded by TODCO are also making money. It’s another money laundering pipeline from the government.
the political spectrum, seen in 3d is actually a circle and thus the far left are involuntarily right wing fascists, worshipping at the feet of and pushing agenda of the corporate philanthropists false promises and the state's infinite credit line.
I love Mission Local and Guardian, and read both religiously. However, that piece felt incredibly one-sided. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they followed the money. However, it should apply to all candidates and causes as they pertain to local politics.
Lee, yes, I am pedant...Here is part of your sub-headline:
"A string a new reporting" I know you meant "of".
But next time you are in a Congressional testimony, pettiness run amok, some bitchy person would say.....well, he can't even proof read...blah blah. I no longer put stuff like that as improbable after watching certain Congressperson reaction to your testimony a few days ago.
Thanks for reporting this, Lee, because it's a sad thing that a major city like SF does not have a good local newspaper or investigative reporting outfit, which helps explain why the citizens even do not know about these wealthy funders.
Aside from that, the two rival "parties" in SF are the far-left Democrats and the old-fashioned liberal Democrats. The "moderates" of SF would be labeled "far-left" in most other cities.
Stay on top of these local shenanigans, Lee. In a way, lefty Bay Area cities are like the canary in the coal mine -- they will reveal to the rest of the nation the bankruptcy of far-left ideology in regards to what it can (or rather, cannot) do for ordinary people.
That's right. I use left, far left, liberal etc. as shorthand, but as many commenters point out, it's all very relative. The "SF moderate" or even SF conservative is on average far to the left of most Americans. The differences among Democrats here are intentionally obscured so most people have difficulty following who is enacting a certain policy and why.
Thanks for the interesting report. I have two questions:
1. You mention that TODCO is a not-for-profit. Why would individuals involved in it be spending their own money to support politicians that increase TODCO's revenue if they're not drawing profit from it? I get that they may be drawing a salary, but the amount you mention, $435K by a single individual, seems large enough to outstrip any benefit from continuing to draw a salary. What am I missing?
2. Is there a correlation between police spending and crime rates? A quick, very surface look at search results suggests that a lot of people who are educated on the topic think the answer is no. What I've read from you suggests you think the answer is yes. Would you be willing to explain what led you to that conclusion?
1. The disclosed nonprofit salaries at TODCO go as high as $770k, but they also have for-profit subsidiary entities, which do not disclose salaries. So we just don’t know. It’s a lot like “nonprofit” hospital chains that find creative ways to extract huge amounts of wealth.
2. I don’t think police overall spending matters, what matters for public safety is how many active police officers are working the streets, 911 response times, clearance rates of crime, police-civilian cooperation. Cities like SF spend more and more every year on the police budget with less and less cops on payroll. How? They have union negotiated pension obligations, pay raises and over time for cops tasked with covering special events. Much of that money doesn’t go to active policing on day to day crime. We need public safety and active professional policing, not necessarily higher retirement spending for cops no longer on the force — which is a big part of the police budget.
Ran an SRO hotel for a few months once, almost half a century ago. Back then, the streets were clean and cleaned regularly. Yes, there were plenty of drugs, drinking, and sex available, but actual harm was rare but did happen. A fellow hotel manager, much like myself, was murdered for at most a few hundred. That led me to change directions and areas.
It doesn’t need to be this way. Perhaps we should limit contributions to those who actually live in the city.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral charlatans. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep (abate), their cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good, will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience, bathed in the salve of the noble lie.
Dude - there isn’t any such thing as a ‘far left’ billionaire. It’s totally oxymoronic. The minute you try and levy a 90% tax on those a-holes, or make their kids go to public schools, or force them to use a public health care system - they’ll show you exactly how ‘far’ left they are. You are talking about liberals - the kind who are wildly radical until it affects them personally.
The labels here can be tricky, but on social issues, many of these billionaires consider themselves to be and fund far left causes.
Well, how about, borrowing from Rob Henderson, "Luxury belief billionaires".
“In every American community, you have varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects. Ten degrees to the left of center in good times, ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally. “
/ Love me, I’m a Liberal. Phil Ochs
We need to find a new word then - I mean, people can call themselves purple dinosaurs, but that doesn’t turn them into Barney.
Why call them "far left" at all? It feels like it's being used as a pejorative.
Why not let the facts speak for themselves?
What’s a better term for the politics of billionaires who fund abolish the police?
How about "billionaires who fund abolish the police"?
Is that not a far left position?
I guess that depends on how you like to divide up the spectrum.
Most people seem to choose which side they are on and then call everyone they don't like a member of the opposite end of the spectrum.
There are a couple I find useful:
1) the classic "who controls the means of production", with the further left you move, the more democratized the ownership of the means of production are. This is what I was taught in school back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth (the 80s).
2) closely related would be a centralization of authority or totalitarianism on the Right, and democracy on the left. I guess some would put total anarchy on the left, but that doesn't seem to be particularly useful.
I agree with the previous commenter that a billionaire can't be left wing - the fact they control so much undemocratically would make them, by the definitions I was taught, on the right, and favoring a centralization of power.
Machiavelli would probably have a good word for them. Wolves in sheep’s clothing. It hurts, as a San Franciscan, realizing the duplicity in action by a group of faux liberals attempting to destroy a community so they can enjoy the benefits of a fire sale.
Ding ding! This is likely about driving prices down so a round of foreclosures and fire sales happens. Similar rioting was noted to occur around so-called Opportunity zones, https://golocal.solari.com/mapping-the-portland-oregon-riots/
Can’t wait to read this. I love CAF. Thanks.
Written 100 years ago, GK Chesterton he had this to say about the rich and government:
“You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare
Since the consequences of defunding the police, turning millions of people loose at the (nonexistent) border, and enlisting ineffective, incompetent minions to run "charity" or "nonprofit" organizations to make themselves look enlightened and keep the whole racket going, they have no incentive to stop and no intention of correcting any problem at all.
Thanks for the excellent reporting. You have certainly identified the enemy. Defund the police, eliminate meat/fossil fuels (except private jets for elite and yachts), eat bugs (only for non-elite), forced vaccination/masking, lock down the world (except elite people), let criminals out of jail, demonize white people (only non-elite non-left whites), and disarm the population (non-elite of course w/o hired armed security) are all movements bank rolled by largely the same mostly white billionaires. These are the Lex Luthor class terrorizing the world. A much bigger threat to national security than China, Iran, or Russia.
Thanks Lee. Another excellent example of how the average American has been left to fend for themselves. People scratch their heads in puzzlement over Trump’s popularity with the common folk, but until these people are directly impacted with the consequences of their own policy endorsements, nothing will ever change. It baffles the mind how they can be so obtuse.
Whatever one supports in terms of policy, this is the kind if detailed reporting that deserves the label “investigative reporting.”
THIS is great work. This is why I subscribe to Lee. I don't always agree with him but he's equal opportunity with this kind of thing.
Thank you
I wish I was a billionaire so I could fund getting your work out to everyone! You're so good Lee.
😂 very sweet of you
Theresa, I keep asking the same question: What is the benefit to these elites that contribute to causes that only destroy the fabric of their city? And am perplexed. Lee can you answer that question? It is obvious to any rational person SF is not succeeding.
I’ve met many of these donors. They don’t bother walking the streets and never talk to victims of crime or working class people. They read radical left literature and surround themselves in an echo chamber of weirdo extremist elite activists. Some like TODCO have financial incentives. Most are just blinded by ideology and are so fabulously wealthy that they are in denial about how much harm they are causing.
Great article! TODCO is profiting off its virtue-signaling - less housing then higher market rents paid to TODCO. Like the NGOs, the groups funded by TODCO are also making money. It’s another money laundering pipeline from the government.
“The far left”. There isnt a left in this country let alone a far left.
I should note I wrote the headline as a bit of a troll of the Guardian headline: “Inside tech billionaires’ push to reshape San Francisco politics”
the political spectrum, seen in 3d is actually a circle and thus the far left are involuntarily right wing fascists, worshipping at the feet of and pushing agenda of the corporate philanthropists false promises and the state's infinite credit line.
I love Mission Local and Guardian, and read both religiously. However, that piece felt incredibly one-sided. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they followed the money. However, it should apply to all candidates and causes as they pertain to local politics.
Thank you Lee for bringing attention to that.
Yes, to be clear, I appreciate a lot of what is written in Mission Local and the Guardian. But these recent pieces needed balance.
Lee, yes, I am pedant...Here is part of your sub-headline:
"A string a new reporting" I know you meant "of".
But next time you are in a Congressional testimony, pettiness run amok, some bitchy person would say.....well, he can't even proof read...blah blah. I no longer put stuff like that as improbable after watching certain Congressperson reaction to your testimony a few days ago.
Thank you for flagging, I’ve fixed it on the web version.
Nice article.
So why are monied real-estate investors trying to ruin their city? There has to be some kind of strategy behind what seems unexplainable.
Are they capturing huge streams of corrupt government money that rewards them perversely thru moral hazard? Or else - what is it?
Thanks for reporting this, Lee, because it's a sad thing that a major city like SF does not have a good local newspaper or investigative reporting outfit, which helps explain why the citizens even do not know about these wealthy funders.
Aside from that, the two rival "parties" in SF are the far-left Democrats and the old-fashioned liberal Democrats. The "moderates" of SF would be labeled "far-left" in most other cities.
Stay on top of these local shenanigans, Lee. In a way, lefty Bay Area cities are like the canary in the coal mine -- they will reveal to the rest of the nation the bankruptcy of far-left ideology in regards to what it can (or rather, cannot) do for ordinary people.
That's right. I use left, far left, liberal etc. as shorthand, but as many commenters point out, it's all very relative. The "SF moderate" or even SF conservative is on average far to the left of most Americans. The differences among Democrats here are intentionally obscured so most people have difficulty following who is enacting a certain policy and why.
Thanks for the interesting report. I have two questions:
1. You mention that TODCO is a not-for-profit. Why would individuals involved in it be spending their own money to support politicians that increase TODCO's revenue if they're not drawing profit from it? I get that they may be drawing a salary, but the amount you mention, $435K by a single individual, seems large enough to outstrip any benefit from continuing to draw a salary. What am I missing?
2. Is there a correlation between police spending and crime rates? A quick, very surface look at search results suggests that a lot of people who are educated on the topic think the answer is no. What I've read from you suggests you think the answer is yes. Would you be willing to explain what led you to that conclusion?
Many thanks!
1. The disclosed nonprofit salaries at TODCO go as high as $770k, but they also have for-profit subsidiary entities, which do not disclose salaries. So we just don’t know. It’s a lot like “nonprofit” hospital chains that find creative ways to extract huge amounts of wealth.
2. I don’t think police overall spending matters, what matters for public safety is how many active police officers are working the streets, 911 response times, clearance rates of crime, police-civilian cooperation. Cities like SF spend more and more every year on the police budget with less and less cops on payroll. How? They have union negotiated pension obligations, pay raises and over time for cops tasked with covering special events. Much of that money doesn’t go to active policing on day to day crime. We need public safety and active professional policing, not necessarily higher retirement spending for cops no longer on the force — which is a big part of the police budget.
Thank you! I appreciate your taking the time to answer questions.
Great article!
Ran an SRO hotel for a few months once, almost half a century ago. Back then, the streets were clean and cleaned regularly. Yes, there were plenty of drugs, drinking, and sex available, but actual harm was rare but did happen. A fellow hotel manager, much like myself, was murdered for at most a few hundred. That led me to change directions and areas.
It doesn’t need to be this way. Perhaps we should limit contributions to those who actually live in the city.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral charlatans. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep (abate), their cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good, will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience, bathed in the salve of the noble lie.
The sheer scope and audacity of these people to ruin a community should be viewed as an act of aggression.